AJOB Empirical Bioethics

VOL. 11 No. 2 | May 2020

By Mark McQuain

It is hard to keep a good theme down as terminology is back in the news. It seems National Public Radio (NPR) is concerned about proper terminology as a recent “Guidance Reminder: On Abortion Procedures, Terminology & Rights” post by NPR Standards and Practices Editor Mark Memmott on NPR.com suggests. This link is one of periodic commentaries by Memmott on standards expected by journalists at NPR based upon their Ethics Handbook, which is also available on their website. The stated goal of the Ethics Handbook and the periodic commentaries is to be as accurate and unbiased as possible with reporting at NPR, which is obviously an appropriate goal in reporting the news, particularly potentially controversial topics. Read Memmott’s commentary link and see if you think NPR is meeting that goal.

I think there is room for improvement.

For one thing, while there is an appropriate “We-They” throughout the article describing NPR’s word choice versus the word choice of groups favoring “anti-abortion rights” (approved term), I failed to find a similar “We-They” within the article describing NPR’s word choice versus the word choice of groups favoring “pro-abortion rights” (not approved term). Perhaps I missed it?

Additionally, NPR favors the term “fetus” over the term “unborn”, despite the fact that fetus means “unborn offspring of an animal” per Wikipedia or “unborn or unhatched vertebrate” per Merriam-Webster. The Latin sounds more accurate but fewer people are speaking Latin these days. Nonetheless, NPR believes that “[i]ncorrectly calling a fetus a ‘baby’ or ‘the unborn’ is part of the strategy used by antiabortion groups to shift language/legality/public opinion.” I wonder if the Mayo Clinic realizes their interchangeable use of the terms “fetus” and “baby” on their fetal ultrasound web page is not only incorrect but places them squarely in the antiabortion movement trying to shift language/legality/public opinion?

Finally, NPR does not like to use the term “abortion clinics” but rather “medical or heath clinics that perform abortions”. That may indeed be more accurate but why stop there? Why not list all the procedures that a specified medical clinic performs, including the total number of each of the procedures performed, and let the reader decide how he or she wishes to categorize that particular clinic?

It is wrong to purposely select terms feigning accuracy so as to appear unbiased, particularly if the goal is to bias by use of those very same terms.

Twitter

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Two major studies casting doubt on the ability of antimalaria drugs to treat #COVID19 patients were retracted Thursday after concerns over the integrity of their data sets #bioethics #researchethics https://t.co/8GQ1VecWgw